The San Francisco Neo-Futurists return for a new season & new venue at 447 Minna
The SF Neo-Futurists on stage for “The Infinite Wrench: Best of 2022.” Photo credit: Kayleigh McCollum
Critically-acclaimed indie-theater collective finds stability through CAST with its move to SoMa
For Immediate Release: January 6, 2023
San Francisco, California
San Francisco, CA – This January 2023, Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST) welcomes experimental theater company the San Francisco Neo-Futurists as its newest partner to CAST’s arts and cultural hub, 447 Minna. They are the third arts organization to join the SoMa building, which opened to the public in March 2022 with the vision of providing an affordable, accessible community gathering space promoting arts and culture to build connection and inclusion. 447 Minna is currently home to arts nonprofits Women’s Audio Mission and soon-to-be PUSH Dance.
This year is particularly momentous for CAST and the SF Neo-Futurists as it marks the 10th anniversaries for both organizations, coincidentally. The wildly prolific theater collective of writers, directors, and performers have produced over 3,000 original short plays by a diverse ensemble of 39 Bay Area artists in that timeframe. Though like many artist-run collectives in the San Francisco Bay Area, that resilience has been tested.
“As an indie theater company operating on a shoestring budget, we’ve struggled throughout our ten-year history with stability. Each year, a few ensemble members move away because of the Bay Area’s high cost of living,” said SF Neo-Futurist Co-Artistic Director and ensemble member Topher Lin.
With pandemic closures of show venues and arts spaces being continually lost across the city, the landscape of theater forever changed, making CAST’s mission of anchoring artists and culture workers all the more urgent. For the SF Neo-Futurists, bouncing around San Francisco venues like Z Space, the now-defunct Boxcar Theatre, and PianoFight took a toll. The move to 447 Minna and partnership with CAST hopes to offer some reprieve.
“Thanks to the work of CAST, we’re now able to spend less on rent, freeing up more funds for artist pay,” noted SF Neo-Futurist Co-Artistic Director and ensemble member Willie Caldwell.
447 Minna is just one of the permanently affordable spaces in CAST’s constellation of buildings—that includes CounterPulse, Luggage Store Gallery, and the Geneva Powerhouse—stewarded with an emphasis on inclusivity. It is a core value that the SF Neo-Futurists maintain committed to as well. “[We want] to create art that bridges the gap between performer and audience member, and to reflect the world as it currently is…our intention is to create work that embraces those unreached or unmoved by conventional theater, inspiring them to thought, feeling and action,” said Willie.
Fifty weekends a year on every Friday and Saturday night, you can catch “the Neos” performing their unique brand of non-illusory, inexpensive theater that is most importantly, accessible. As Co-Director Topher Lin puts it, “We cultivate a low-budget, punk sensibility to show that anyone can make art that is genuinely moving and thought-provoking. You don’t need a fancy degree or a big budget to tell your own story or to create a novel experience for audiences.”
The SF Neo-Futurists put on their inaugural performance of The Infinite Wrench at 447 Minna on Friday, January 13, 2023 at 9:00pm. Get your tickets here.
Learn more about 447 Minna, CAST, and our arts partners at: 447minna.com
Media Contact:
Catherine Nguyen, CAST Director of Communications
T: (415) 556-9888, ext. 111
E: cnguyen@cast-sf.org
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ABOUT THE SAN FRANCISCO NEO-FUTURISTS
The San Francisco Neo-Futurists are a collective of wildly prolific writer/director/performers who create theater that is a fusion of sport, poetry and living newspaper, and that conveys experiences and ideas as directly and honestly as possible. Named one of “22 San Francisco things everyone must do” by the SF Chronicle, their flagship show, The Infinite Wrench, is an ever-changing collection of 30 short plays performed in a race against the clock, performed 50 weekends a year. Since the company’s founding in November 2013, they’ve written and performed over 3,000 original short plays, winning Best Theater Company in SF Weekly’s Readers’ Poll & the SF Bay Guardian Best of the Bay. Learn about the SF Neo-Futurists and upcoming performances at sfneofuturists.org.
ABOUT COMMUNITY ARTS STABILIZATION TRUST (CAST)
Founded in 2013, Community Arts Stabilization Trust is a community-centered real estate nonprofit committed to ensuring artists and culture workers can stay anchored where they create. We work in deep partnership with communities across the San Francisco Bay Area to model new ways to secure and steward affordable, inclusive spaces for creative and cultural expression. By applying real estate financing tools and structural models in innovative ways, building community knowledge and agency, and creating and holding space for arts activation, our programs and services have helped arts organizations build pathways to ownership, enabled artists to secure long-term affordable leases, and created dedicated spaces for cultural connection and exchange. Together, we are building a new real estate paradigm in the Bay Area — one that recognizes the essential role of arts and culture and gives us all the space to dream. For more information, visit cast-sf.org. Follow @CASTSF on Instagram and Twitter and @SFCAST on Facebook.
We are supported by:
California Arts Council | First Republic Foundation | Hewlett Foundation | Kenneth Rainin Foundation | Kresge Foundation | San Francisco Arts Commission | #StartSmall | Walter & Elise Haas Fund and supporters like YOU
